


Not In A Right State of Mind

by as_time_stands_still



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, IDK magnus is Lucretia's big brother, Set just after Lunar Interlude IV, Spoilers for Episode: e041-049 The Eleventh Hour Parts 1-9, aggressively liberal interpretation of how the voidfish work, for dramatic effect of course, i guess, lucretia you can't just keep erasing peoples memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 09:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20562185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/as_time_stands_still/pseuds/as_time_stands_still
Summary: The sketch of the Red Robe with his face has haunted Magnus for weeks. Isolated, with no one to trust, he has no choice but to investigate himself. Because he can't ask Lucretia for help--she would just lie to him again.AKA Magnus and Lucretia needed more scenes together





	Not In A Right State of Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am the type of person who uses song lyrics instead of coming up with a title.  
This one is from Liar by The Arcadian Wild. Which just sounds like Lucretia' internal monologue tbh.

It had taken Magnus some time to acclimate to the higher elevation of the Bureau of Balance. For the first few months, working out was difficult as he strained against the thin oxygen level. But with time, his body adjusted, he adapted as he always did, and now his frequent night runs around the campus took about as much effort as pissing off Leon.

The air was always brisk and cool at night, and it always helped to clear his head. He needed a lot of that nowadays.

Ever since he had found that drawing of the Red Robe with his face.

Magnus waved a greeting to the small security detail that patrolled the quad and picked up his pace. Running helped him think, his feet pounding into the ground in time with his heartbeat clearing away the fog of his ruminating thoughts better than anything else could. As he ran, he filtered through his list of “What I Know” once more.

He’d spent hours in his room, his knees up to his chest as he contemplated the implications of the sketch. Rationalizing and justifications had failed to produce any kind of comfort, but it was made worse by how totally alone he was in this. As much as he loved Taako and Merle, and would trust them with his life, he didn’t want to burden them with the thought that their compatriot could secretly be conspiring against them.

And Lucretia...he had almost gone to her a dozen times. Surely the director the Bureau of Balance would have some kind of answer for the impossibility in front of him. Being a part of a secret organization hell-bent on destroying Faerun would have been a fairly significant portion of his life. He would remember something like that. Wouldn’t he? 

Then again, there had been that static. For the first two weeks, he had forgotten about the static in his memories, lost in the high of victory and the repressed emotions June and the Temporal Chalice had ripped from the depths of his heart. 

Istus herself had no idea. If the gods themselves couldn’t see past the curtain of static, there was only one explanation: the Voidfish. Plural. 

It was the only logical conclusion Magnus could arrive to. He had pestered Taako about memory spells, probing the depths of the wizard’s knowledge of the arcane, and when that failed, he had gone to the small library, poring through books on the subject. He spent weeks in the library after practice with Noelle, Killian, and Carey, the latter of whom had noticed Magnus’ preoccupation within a few days.

“I’m worried about you,” she said as they went through their cooldown routine, “I hardly see you anymore outside of practice.”

Magnus gave her a weak smile. “I’m just tired.”

“Well no shit. You look like you’ve erased the word ‘sleep’ from your vocabulary. The Director wants you ready to go for your next mission and you can’t do that on four hours of sleep a night.”

“Don’t worry about me, Carey, I’ll be fine.”

She paused for a moment, holding his gaze. Then, she put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m here if you need to talk. I could use some more carpentry lessons.”

“You know, I do want to ask you something, Carey.”

She pulled an arm taut over her chest in a deep stretch. “As long as it’s not where I was last night,” she said with a grin, and a not-so-subtle look in Killian’s direction. “Hit me.”

Magnus rolled his eyes. “What do you know about the Red Robes?”

Carey froze. After a moment, she dropped her stretch and laughed nervously. “That’s uh, kind of an odd question, Magnus. What makes you ask that?”

He shook his head. “Just something from our last mission.”

“Well...” Carey looked at the ground, her claws tapping a slightly panicked rhythm against her leg. “They’re evil, right? That’s what Lu...Madam Director always says, right? Any sightings get reported to her and we stay as far away from them as possible.”

“Have you ever seen one?”

She nodded. “Once. Killian and I were scouting in Neverwinter, looking for something for you boys to go after, when I saw it. It was just for a moment, but it looked at me...and sort of...nodded? I’m not sure what it was trying to tell me but I do remember that I felt kind of sick to my stomach. And cold, it got cold.”

“Did you tell Lucretia?”

Carey met his gaze once again, this time with fiery glint in her eyes. “No. And I’m not going to.”

Magnus let out a shaky breath and Carey put a hand on his arm. “Magnus, what’s wrong? Did you get attacked? Do I need to go shove some asshole’s crimson robe down it’s throat?”

He laughed, but the sound was hollow, almost bitter. “I’m worried...that I accidentally did something bad. Or that I was involved with something bad. I don’t think I’m the type of person who would intentionally hurt people but...not knowing for sure is kind of killing me, you know?”

“I don’t?” Carey wrinkled her snout “What are you talking about? You’re one of the best people I know. And even if you did fuck up, we’re all here for you. Hell, you think I don’t blame myself for Boyland’s death? That’s a pretty major fuck up, but I know you all are here for me. We’re in this shit together.”

Carey’s words had provided some modicum of comfort.

We’re in this together.

Magnus slowed to a stop as he spotted the Director leaning against the glass railing that circled the open portion of the moon base. It was the first time he had seen her in days. Apparently she had been holed up in her office, refusing to talk to anyone. And in the weeks before, there was a heaviness to her usually regal stature. Every time she snapped at them, or harped on some flaw, his annoyance had been dispelled by how fucking tired she looked. And Carey had been getting on his case about sleep.

They were in this together.

So why wasn’t Lucretia?

Magnus continued forward, walking beyond his normal route to the railing where she was standing. Silently, he took position next to her, staring out over the edge. If she was startled or otherwise perturbed by his presence, she didn’t make it known.

After a few moments filled with nothing but the wind, Magnus asked “Are you okay?”

One of her hands clenched into a fist. “I’m fine.”

“Obviously, you’re not.”

A faint ghost of a smile tugged at her expression. “I appreciate your concern, Magnus. It’s not something you need to burden yourself with.”

He shrugged. “I know that feeling.” When she didn’t respond, he tried again. “We are worried about you.”

“There are other areas we should be directing our energy. I’m sorry that our interpersonal relationships have suffered, but there will be time enough when we’re done.”

“Finding the Grand Relics, you mean?” Magnus scoffed “So what, until we find the other two we’re just supposed to ignore the fact that you look like shit all the time?”

Lucretia shot him a pained glance. “Staying up to work is not something I’m unfamiliar with. I’ll be fine.”

The conversation broke again into that all-encompassing silence. Magnus opened his mouth to reply, but words had never been his strong suit. He couldn’t understand why he was so worried about her. She was older than him by at least a decade if not two, and yet he was compelled to embrace her, to tell her that everything would be all right. It was an impulse that was familiar somehow, muscle memory engraved into something deeper than mere recollection.

So why couldn’t he trust her? Of everyone in the world, Lucretia was probably the only one with real answers. Was it because he didn’t trust her to know that he was...

Magnus struggled to complete the thought without the ever-present static. Maybe he was less scared of Lucretia knowing about the drawing than of the fact that she would lie about it. She would spin some story about how it was the Red Robes’ deception, and it would be so obviously fake but Magnus couldn’t press her for more details or risk her shutting him out completely.

With as innocuous a tone as he could muster, Magnus said “You’ve been training us pretty hard.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any pain. I just know how difficult your next mission will be and I want to ensure you’re fully prepared.”

“You know where the sixth Relic is?” Magnus asked.

“Yes. I’ll...I will probably be pulling you boys in sometime in the next week. Time is running out and I don’t want to waste it.”

“Wait,” Magnus said, standing back up from the railing. “What do you mean time is running out?”

“I...I mean, the...” she stammered, “The Relics, every second we don’t have them is more people who could be hurt, or more bad people gaining power, or--”

“Does it have to do with the black plane?” He asked. A whisper of static filtered through his mind, but the childlike drawing the Voidfish had shown him apparently didn’t merit a full blackout.

Lucretia’s eyes went wide and she pushed back off the railing, taking a hasty step back. “What? How do you know about -̦͈̻̹͝-̙͓̱̼-̣̭̼̩̲͝ͅ-͇̗̩̘̼͉͜-̖̭̯̻͠-̶̝̞͕͚̠̳-͎̺̳-̦̖̩͓͉͘-̵̭̻̹͕̪?”

A pit dropped into Magnus’ stomach and a thousand different alarms went off in his body. “So there is another voidfish,” he murmured. 

Lucretia was shaking. “It’s...Magnus, it’s hard to explain.”

“Well you’d better start explaining, right fucking now.” Magnus took a step towards her and she yelped, pointing her staff at him to put distance between them.

“Please, Magnus, I...Yes, yes, there’s something bad coming but that’s all I can tell you. We need to find the relics and destroy them and then I can stop it.” She backpedaled, stumbled, and dropped to one knee.

“Cut the bullshit Lucretia! What the fuck is going on?” His voice thundered through the air. This time when he moved towards her, she flinched, closing her eyes and bracing herself.

The image in his vision flickered and for just a moment she changed. Still every bit as scared, but much younger, younger even than him. It wasn’t an illusion, and the image slipped out of his mind as quickly as it came, fading into a background buzz of static. 

Magnus inhaled sharply. He knew he cut an intimidating figure, but he didn’t want this. Lucretia was _terrified_ of him. That he might hurt her and that thought made him a little sick to his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, the wind carrying away the words. He dropped to his knees next to Lucretia and wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened, still expecting some kind of attack. 

Then, her face crumpled and she began to cry. Between short breaths, she gasped out “I’m so sorry, Magnus, I didn’t want to hurt you. I just thought that...I can fix this. I know I can.”

He hushed her softly, tightening his arms around her. She leaned into his embrace and again there was that sense of familiarity. He had done this before. 

But he hadn’t. This was the first time he had ever seen Lucretia on the verge of hysterics, or really expressing any emotion besides her calm authority or irritation. A small tear in her impartial, cold mask. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, “For not hating me.”

“Why would I hate you? Lucretia, I want to help.”

Lucretia pushed her way out of his arms, gathering her cape around her shoulder and pushing herself to her feet with her staff. “I know you do. But this...it’s something I have to do by myself.”

“I mean I’m definitely going to need answers. If we’re going to help you then we need as much information as we can get.”

She exhaled slowly, refusing to meet his eyes. “Magnus, I’ll explain everything tomorrow. We can meet in my office and I’ll explain.”

Magnus nodded. “I’m counting on it.”

Lucretia wiped a hand across her face and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry about all this. It’s probably best if you went on your way. You’ll need your rest.”

Once again, she had thrown up a wall in front of herself. What was it that she was trying so desperately to protect, that she would lie to him for a year? And why did he _remember her?_

Nothing but static.

Reluctantly, Magnus bid Lucretia goodnight and turned to begin jogging back to his dorm. He spared one glance back at Lucretia, who had resumed her position on the railing, looking for all the world like their conversation had never happened.

He could wait until tomorrow to get answers.

-

The sun streamed in through the windows, hitting Magnus’ face directly, and he groaned, rolling over onto his side. He deserved to sleep in this morning. After all, it would just be more training with the Regulators. If someone really needed him they could try to wake him back up.

In the dim light of the vault behind her office, Lucretia sat silently, watching as the ink bled off of a sheet of paper newly torn from her journal, her most recent entry now clutched in the tendrils of a small voidfish.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
